Components of high-temperature mechanical systems, such as gas-turbine engines, must operate in severe environments. Some components may be formed of a polycrystalline material, such as, for example, titanium or a titanium alloy with a hexagonal close packed (HCP) crystal structure. The grains in the polycrystalline material may each have a crystal orientation, which may be the same or different than the crystal orientation of other grains in the polycrystalline material.
Mechanical properties of a polycrystalline material may be anisotropic in a local or a macroscopic regime, with anisotropies along one or more axes of the crystal structure. For example, a polycrystalline material including an HCP crystal structure may have a main anisotropy lying along a c-axis of the HCP crystal structure. For this reason, knowledge of the orientation of crystal axes may be important when processing the polycrystalline material into a component, such as a gas turbine engine component. For example, local yield strength, dwell fatigue resistance, or the like, may be affected by the crystal orientation on a microscopic or macroscopic level.